Page 194 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)
P. 194
Ice-age giants
The high-domed skull
was similar to that of
the Asian elephant.
Entire
The rise of mammals Castoroides At up to 7 ft (2.1 m) regularly found
mammoths are
long, this huge beaver
buried in frozen
was the size of a bear.
ground in
Siberia.
Male mammoth
The tusks of a male
Castoroides may mammoth could be up
have had a flattened to 14 ft (4.2 m) long and
tail for swimming, grew in a spiral that made
like a modern beaver. Coelodonta was the the tips point inward and
size of a modern white almost touch each other.
rhino and had two horns
Coelodonta up to 2 ft (60 cm) long. Juvenile female mammoth
Even young mammoths
had tusks, which were
modified front teeth. They
grew at the rate of up to
6 in (15 cm) a year.
About 2.6 million years ago, the world’s ice sheets resembled the snowy, treeless tundra
climate became cooler triggering a found today in regions like Alaska and Siberia.
succession of ice ages. During these cold The southern continents were less affected
phases, vast ice sheets extended south from because they were farther from the pole. During
the Arctic across much of North America and the ice ages, many plant-eating mammals
192 northern Eurasia. The landscape beyond the evolved a large body size as an adaptation
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